Platen assemblies such as electrostatic clamps are used widely for many manufacturing processes including semiconductor manufacturing, solar cell manufacturing, and processing of other components. Many substrates such as semiconductor wafers may be subject to processing over a wide range of substrate temperatures, such as between −100° C. and 750° C. For example, during an ion implant process into a semiconductor wafer it may be desirable to perform a first ion implant while the substrate is maintained at room temperature or at a lower temperature down to −100° C. It may also be desirable to conduct a second implant into the same substrate at an elevated temperature such as at 500° C. or above. In order to accommodate both implantation processes in the same ion implanter without undue complexity and expense of time, it may be desirable that a single platen assembly function both at room temperature and at elevated temperatures. However present day platen assemblies may not be suitable for operation over a wide substrate temperature range, such as between −100° C. and 750° C. This is in part due to thermal properties of components of the platen assembly as well as the substrate, in which differences in coefficient of thermal expansion among components may generate large internal stresses. This problem is exacerbated as the size of substrates scales up to larger dimensions. Accordingly, it is common practice to employ a dedicated platen assembly for operation at high substrate temperature, and a dedicated platen assembly to operate at room temperature or below.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present improvements have been needed.